Nagpur: A jobless man was duped of Rs 1.40 lakh in the name of ‘work from home’ assignment in Rana Pratap Nagar police station area.
According to police, the victim Rupesh Kishan Khapekar (40), a resident of Plot No. 2, Mani Layout, Rana Pratap Nagar, received a phone call from an unidentified person who promised assignment of ‘work from home’ to Rupesh in October 2022. Accepting the offer, Rupesh paid Rs 100 online as registration fee to the fraudster.
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Saturday 25 Jan. 2025
Later, the fraudster called Rupesh again and again and collected a whopping Rs 1.40 lakh on the pretext of different fees in nine installments to get the work. After realising the fraud, Rupesh approached the police and lodged a complaint.
An offence under Sections 419 and 420 of IPC read with Section 66 (d) of Information Technology Act was registered by Rana Pratap Nagar Police. Further probe is underway.
It may be recalled that in India, nearly 30 percent of teenagers active on the Internet have been victims of ‘social engineering’ scams. The ‘work from home’ scam is where people are fooled into paying to start a business, which never happens, or being tricked into completing work for which they are not paid.
Scammers have also used phishing techniques to trap many homemakers and students along with unemployed people looking for part-time jobs. Victims are prompted to pay a processing fee to get ‘large sums of money’ by scammers pretending to be officials from law and enforcement agencies, who actually steal the money by way of social engineering and in the name of ‘errors’ they make during ‘home from work’ tasks.
Scammers promise rewards in exchange for time spent on simple tasks like typing, filling forms, and social media likings. Many victims pay hefty advances and security deposits before they get money for proposed tasks. People are afraid of loss, and fraudsters exploit such fears. They send a message or make a call warning about errors during the ‘data entry’ job assigned to the victim.
